"ebook" entries

BitCoin in 2012, By The Numbers — Over the past year Bitcoin’s value when compared to the US Dollar, and most other currencies, increased steadily, though there was a large spike and subsequent dip in August. Interestingly, the current market cap is actually at a peak for 2012, exceeding the spike in August. This can be attributed to the fact that tens of thousands of Bitcoins have been introduced into the economy since August, though now at the slower rate of 25 per block.

Man-Computer Symbiosis (JCR Licklider) — In short, it seems worthwhile to avoid argument with (other) enthusiasts for artificial intelligence by conceding dominance in the distant future of cerebration to machines alone. There will nevertheless be a fairly long interim during which the main intellectual advances will be made by men and computers working together in intimate association. Fascinating to read this 1960 paper on AI and the software/hardware augmentation of human knowledge work (just as the term “knowledge worker” was coined). (via Jim Stogdill)

A good ebook sample can turn a browser into a buyer.

Joe Wikert: "My gut tells me the revenue missed by not converting samples into sales is a much larger figure than the revenue lost to piracy. And yet, the publishing industry spends a small fortune every year in DRM but treats samples as an afterthought."

"Breaking the Page" author Peter Meyers on the tools, tech and future of digital publishing.

Since 2009, Peter Meyers has immersed himself in the tools and companies in the digital publishing world. Here he shares what he's learned, who's doing digital publishing well, and what's surprised him.

Comments Off on Research and restraint: Two more things to add to your digital publishing toolkit

This week on O'Reilly: Author Clay Johnson explained why information consumption, not overload, is what needs to be managed. Also, Alistair Croll looked at the relationship between business intelligence and big data, and Todd Sattersten made a case for the paperless book.

True data over big data, community building through data, and the choreography of digital design.

This week on O'Reilly: Alistair Croll explained why true data is more important than big data, we looked at how BuzzData is building community around datasets, and Liza Daly explained the connection between digital content and choreography.

Three Ages of Google — from batch, to scaling through datacenters, and finally now to techniques for real-time scaling. Of interest to everyone interested in low-latency high-throughput transactions. Datacenters have the diameter of a microsecond, yet we are still using entire stacks designed for WANs. Real-time requires low and bounded latencies and our stacks can’t provide low latency at scale. We need to fix this problem and towards this end Luiz sets out a research agenda, targeting problems that need to be solved. (via Tim O’Reilly)

eReaders and eBooks (Luke Wroblewski) — many eye-opening facts. In 2010 Amazon sold 115 Kindle books for every 100 paperback books. 65% of eReader owners use them in bed, in fact 37% of device usage is in bed.

VT220 on a Mac — dead sexy look. Impressive how many adapters you need to be able to hook a dingy old serial cable up to your shiny new computer.